


Random Acts of Kindness

by Makioka



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Comes with a built in apology, Crack, Gen, Humor, Parody, Ridiculous, Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-31
Updated: 2012-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-13 05:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makioka/pseuds/Makioka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy is a good person, a kind person, and Fury is wise to take on board her offer of help when the Avengers are especially downhearted after a dry spell of fighting. Sadly nothing goes right. Crack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Random Acts of Kindness

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt by avarosier: It's probably difficult for the Avengers to do the kind of work they do, and probably easy to forget what it's like to lead normal lives. Darcy, being a helper gnome, sets out to do little things to cheer them up. Ideas: giving Bruce a hug, letting Tony bother her and prattle on, having a picture painted of Loki for Thor, making a home-cooked meal for Clint or Steve, having a ladies' day out with Natasha, etc.
> 
> It didn't exactly turn out right.

The Avengers mansion was disturbingly quiet. The amplified whistling sounds of Jarvis’s central unit repair (Tony had left the intercom on by accident, and was playing AC/DC too loudly on his headphones to notice,) echoed in the corridors. From one floor came the repetitive thump of a body hitting the wall time and time again, but apart from that it was silent.

Darcy opened the door carefully. She’d learnt to her cost that though the Avengers mansion was a welcoming and well-heated home, that the people who lived in it were unpredictable to a fault and that silence was never a good thing. The last time there’d been true and complete silence had been when Hawkeye had faked a revival of Loki’s mind-magic, and stumbled around with blue contact lenses in, until he gave up the game by cracking up laughing. She tried not to think about what had happened after that. The Hulk had _not_ been happy.

When she slipped into the kitchen that served as their general meeting place she met only Fury, glumly digging into what was clearly his second pot of ice-cream. “Hey,” she greeted cautiously.

He raised his spoon in acknowledgement, as he finished off his mouthful. “Hi Darcy. Do you know where they keep the good stuff?” He tilted his container towards her so she could read the inscription on the side that informed her it was _zero fat lemon sorbet._

Darcy bit her lip. “I think that’s Steve’s,” she said. He had a weakness for lemon, and a disposition that was calm until his sorbet supply was threatened. Binning the empty pots quickly, she replaced the empty space in front of Fury with the chocolate fudge sundae that she’d hidden behind the ice-packs last time she visited. “What’s brought this on?” she asked with more interest than discretion. She’s never seen Fury like this. Striding down corridors with his coat flapping yes, saving the world with a curl of his lip- practically every Thursday, face down in a bowl of calories, no.

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t even know. It’s been two weeks since they’ve had anything to do, and I’m not sure if it’s the missions that are getting to them, or the lack of them.” No need to ask who they were. “They’re annoying each other, Steve won’t stop with the punching bag, Clint won’t stop sticking pictures of Tony’s face to the punching bags, Natasha hasn’t actually been seen in days, Tony is taking hours to fix Jarvis up, Thor is moping about everything, Bruce has a sign taped to his door threatening to Hulk out if anyone knocks.” With a sigh he put the spoon down. “Nothing can be done ‘til another super-villain gets their act together.”

“Isn’t there some sort of signal?” Darcy asked interested. “Y’know like a ‘bring it on bad boys,’ sort of thing?” The eyebrow she got in return rendered that question moot. “You know what. I could totally help. I once scored like a 190 on one of those internet emotional intelligence tests on facebook. In my list of suggested jobs it said primary school teacher, psychologist or super-hero wrangler.”

“Really,” said Fury with a complete lack of inflection.

“Nah. You need like 240 to be a primary school teacher. All those kids man.” 

That stiffed him out of a laugh. “Well I’m not going to lie. Any suggestions could come in useful. Agent Hill suggested kidnapping Tony, and letting the rest rescue him, but that was impractical for a number of reasons.”

“Yeah, guess you don’t want to be the Director that cried villain.”

That earned her a sideways glance. “Precisely, as well as leaving us ridiculously short on personnel if a real threat did emerge. Agent Wood thought that team-building exercises might help, and rather bravely volunteered to carry them out. Said he’d had a lot of success with ice-breakers in the past. Had them sitting in a circle passing each other little bits of paper, think he even tried the falling backwards into people’s arms trick.”

Darcy ruminated for a second, nibbling on her scarf as she thought. “Did it work?” she asked.

Fury got up and put the icecream back in the freezer. “Well they certainly united against him,” he said dryly. “Common foe and all that. Unfortunately there is only so much mileage to be gained from ripping up bits of paper and making rude faces behind someone’s back.” 

“Makes sense. Look Director, I can definitely help. I was once voted most cheerful person in my home state, the only person to ever win it jointly with the ‘most sarcastic’ award. I’ve organised countless Secret Santas, I once amused a wardful of kids by juggling chocolate eggs, and to be honest I make the best cup of coffee ever drank by mortal or Thor. I think I’ve got this one sorted. A little bit of home cheer, a few acts of random kindness and everyone will be in better form by the end of the week I promise.”

She chose to ignore the world-weary look cast on her by Fury, who sighed heavily. “I suppose it can’t hurt,” he said, with a reply that lacked enthusiasm, but made up for it with an implied free-hand. This was going to be _easy._

 

Some hours later she reflected grimly that _easy_ might have been the wrong word to use given the circumstances. Tony had the doors to the lab locked, and they weren’t budging, though thankfully Jarvis was fixed now. At least she’d been thankful as long as he was politely opening doors for her, and not passing snidey Britishy comments about her attempts to bring a little bit of cheerfulness into a few heroes lives. Sadly Tony hadn’t programmed him to be especially respectful to anyone but him. 

She still hadn’t actually found Natasha, or worked up the courage to knock on Bruce’s door. Thor’s present was in the works thanks to a favour owed to her by a friend, and she wasn’t actually sure what Clint would want that wasn’t a variant on ‘new arrows.’ Which left Steve to solve first. Luckily she did have an idea on what would make him happy. It wasn’t like the Avengers mansion was crawling with home-cooked meals after all, it was hard to find decent chefs with the correct security clearance. Generally each individual subsisted on what they could or would cook themselves, or on their extensive collection of takeout leaflets which were forming a garish collage on one side of the kitchen. 

The world knew that Captain America’s favourite food was apple pie, but Darcy acknowledged her limitations, knowing that making an apple pie from scratch was not so easy as it would seem to the uninitiated. After that the best option seemed to be pizza. She knew how to make pizza, _everyone_ knew how to make pizza. The kitchen had everything she needed, and what it didn’t have was easily substitutable. It wasn’t like swapping out yeast for baking powder would do any harm after all, and she’d heard that oil definitely couldn’t go off.

When it was in the oven and cooking nicely as far as she could tell, she texted Steve who’d grown steadily more attached to his phone since he’d been shown how to play Angry Birds. While waiting for him to emerge from the gym, she got her notebook out and noted down the rest of her ideas. A girly day out with Natasha was an excellent idea she thought. Not a night out because that was a scary thought. Natasha generally chilled with Clint, insofar as she ever chilled out with anyone, and occasionally Pepper when she was home. She made a note in her book _see if Pepper is back,_ and went back to thinking. Bruce was the easy one if she could just get into his room. A large hug would do the trick, she thought, pleased with the simplicity of it. He didn’t get nearly enough hugs after all.

That left Tony and Clint. What do you get the billionaire who has everything, and who can buy whatever he hasn’t without blinking an eyelid. She was pretty sure if he wanted a homecooked meal that he could just walk into pretty much any house and buy one if he didn’t charm it out of the owners first. And Clint was too laidback to want anything at all. As she pondered the question, Steve wandered in with a bright smile and freshly washed hair.

Luckily hanging out with Jane and Thor, had somewhat inured her to even Captain America’s thousand megawatt smile and charismatic presence. He really didn’t ever stop being charming though, soliciting her help with a particularly difficult level on Angry Birds, handing her the tea-towel when she went to the oven, and not letting his smile fade even for a second when she set the pizza in front of him.

It wasn’t the best looking pizza she’d ever seen, she had to admit. It was almost completely flat for starters, and hard. “It wasn’t like that when it went in,” she said ruefully.

“I’m sure it’s delicious,” he said politely, and took a bite. As they ate, Darcy chatted and Steve nodded along, looking gradually more uncomfortable. When she was in the middle of asking him what you could possibly buy Tony Stark that he didn’t have, and getting the unhelpful reply ‘a modicum of sense,’ he stood and without a word bolted from the room at super soldier speed, leaving Darcy more than a little confused. With a sigh she scraped the rest of the pizza into the bin having given up after two bites herself. 

As she pondered the choice between beating on Tony’s door again, and letting him use her as a nodding listener for four times as long as anyone else bar Bruce would let him blather on (four minutes,) and tracking down Clint, she saw Bruce enter the kitchen. “Speak of the devil,” she muttered, and Bruce looked at her in surprise. “I know you’re not the devil,” she said calmingly (after all better safe than sorry.) “Devils are red, you’re green.” Feeling obscurely that this hadn’t necessarily made it better, she put part two of her six stage plan into action, and stepped forward arms wide to hug him. He sort of dodged behind a counter and she paused. “It’s a hug dude,” she said encouragingly.

“Darcy, thanks for the thought but hugging me probably isn’t a great idea right now. I had a session with the other guy and I’m a little bit sweaty.”

“Unless the other guy was Tony, because seriously I’ve heard his semen is radioactive, then no worries.” If devils were red, then the dull flush spreading across Bruce’s cheeks should be a warning sign. “But yeah the Hulk is no biggie, bar the obvious.” She dodged forward, “hugs make everything better.”

In the confusion that resulted, Darcy would never know exactly what it was that triggered the hulk out, whether it was Bruce tripping and barking his shin against the door, the radio flickering into life straight into a report of ‘The Hulk: Hero or Hapless Harbringer of Hell,’ or some other mystery reason (clearly his much vaunted calm had been damaged), but that was the last she saw of Bruce that night was a rapidly greening figure scampering swiftly up the stairs.

Gazing at the mess in the kitchen (apparently making pizza took at least five bowls and a couple of frying pans, and the struggle for hug-supremacy had taken it’s toll as well,) was almost as exhausting as making an attempt to tackle it, and wisely Darcy didn’t try. Some things could wait until morning. A quick text to Natasha (and one to Pepper for good measure,) and that was the night pretty much done. Time for home and bed.

The next morning her phone yielded the information that Pepper was away on business, Natasha was happy to get some lunch and Fury wanted a word with her. She guiltily deleted the last text. That could wait until she’d fixed a couple more people up. Luckily the friend who owed her a favour had delivered on her promise, and dropped the present for Thor around earlier that morning. It wasn’t quite what Darcy had imagined, but then there were really only so many sources to work from, and really it was the thought that counted. Everyone said so. She carefully ignored how much the thought counted when it was the third year in a row that her grandmother had bought her a grow-in-a-pot-husband as preparation for the real thing. 

A quick shower and a vigorous session of vacuuming to Abba later, and it was time to drop by and collect Natasha (and drop off her present to Thor at the same time.) While Natasha was looking for her bag, Darcy popped up to Thor’s floor where in the absence of Jane, family and an appropriately evil foe to fight he was seeking gradually deeper into a morose rewatch of the Lord of the Rings (‘it feels like home,’ he’d explained to them too many times already.) She thrust the piece of paper between two bits of cardboard at him, and he received it with a deep bow, his time on earth having done nothing to dent his manners. She noticed his shoulders shaking, and two tears making their way slowly down his face to lose themselves in his beard, and patted his shoulder sympathetically. “It’s good to have a reminder of family,” she said gently, and turned to leave.

It had been a risk to get a friend to sketch a picture of Loki based only on his mugshots, she supposed, but a risk that had paid off. Thor was clearly happy to have a picture of his brother, and you could barely see the gag really. Three out of six done and dusted, and Natasha would make four. It’d be good to get her out of the house for a bit, into the fresh(ish) air, perhaps into a couple of shops, or at very least take her for a decent lunch.

The proposed afternoon out didn’t get off on the best possible foot. Natasha had tried to be discreet, and as her repertoire did include all manner of concealment, disguise and trickery, that bit had certainly worked. What Darcy hadn’t really anticipated was that there was anywhere she might go that Natasha hadn’t been. It turned out that high society and low joints were pretty much Natasha’s milieu, and that places in between were more than a little puzzling to her. It was disconcerting to realise that Natasha had quite literally no idea what the difference was between patchouli and palmarosa, that she didn’t really do vegetarian (she ate, but more as you would in the mountains when you didn’t know when your next meal was coming, and you had to grin and bear it.) Her eyes when they looked up were in fact more haunted than happy.

The attempt to build Natasha a bear had impacted quite severely it seemed on her, because afterwards all she wanted to do was go home, holding the wonky bear in a policeman’s uniform under one arm, and her new bottle of palmarosa essential oil in the same hand while looking rather dazed. Darcy bounded in with her since she was going to give getting in to Tony another shot. 

“Hey Jarvis,” she asked the ceiling. “Do you know where Clint is?”

“He’s in the lab also,” was the strangely muted reply. Good news, Darcy thought. Tackling the pair of them together would mean her job was done, and that his day off wouldn’t have been wasted. This train of happy thought lasted right up until she got to the door, and noticed Fury standing there arms crossed, looking as intimidating as though he’d never heard of chocolate sundae icecream.

“A word Darcy,” he said slowly. “I’m assuming you didn’t get my text.”

She grinned at him a little nervously. “My phone swallows things sometime. It’ll probably pop up when I get better coverage or something. How’s it going anyway?”

He glided a little closer. “Steve hasn’t left the bathroom since last night. I’m not exactly sure what could lay a super-soldier down so low when viruses have no effect. He swears it was something he ate,” there was an audible pause that he was obviously waiting to have filled. When there was no answer he continued. “Thor is alternately raging and sobbing something about having failed his brother, Bruce caused thirty thousand dollars worth of damage last night on his way up to his safe-room. I haven’t been able to get through to Natasha on comms, and Clint and Tony are cowering because they think you’re a force of nature. This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when you suggested cheering everyone up.”

There really was no reply that could be made to that litany, and Darcy didn’t even try. Or rather she only tried a little bit. “I think in a very fundamental way they’re happier though, wouldn’t you agree?”

The silence that greeted her was the perfect moment for Fury’s earpiece to crackle into life. “Threat to the mansion sir, request for Avengers to assemble. Looks like massive robots to me. Over.” Fury responded. “Request heard. Over.” 

Jarvis was already on the job of notifying everyone, and the mansion was filled with the sound of dashing super-heroes, sprung back to life and cheerfulness at the prospect of a visible threat to face as opposed to the nebulous terror of kind acts out of the blue. Darcy raised her eyebrows at Fury, and met his eye with a bland smile. “Worked out all right I think,” she said rather smugly. “You just need to know what to do to get them in fighting trim.”


End file.
